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Thursday, 5 April 2012

Progressive Conservative Election Platform

The PC platform, like many election platforms, promises some
generous policies. The PC website presents a huge list of reforms. Major areas
of reform include healthcare, education, and community focused initiatives. This
platform uses both social welfare spending, as well as liberalization of
regulations, to meet their policy goals.

To meet healthcare demands, the conservatives plan on
opening 140 family care clinics. This initiative will aim to provide better
access to health care for both rural and urban areas. However, the cost of
these clinics is not as openly discussed, and could prove to comprise the PC
position. Especially, for a government who, like the Wildrose party, promises
to have balanced budgets.

However, for many Albertans who cringe at the idea of
public expenditures, the PCs offer non-expenditure solutions for healthcare
challenges. The most prominent being the relaxing of regulations on a pharmacist’s
role. The conservatives plan to allow pharmacists to refill prescriptions by
their own accord, taking pressure off doctors in the rest of the medical
systems. Allowing doctors to only focus on diagnosis and initial prescriptions
could allow Albertans faster access to their medicine and less barriers to
refilling those prescriptions. This is an inexpensive way to increase
healthcare quality in the province.

Education also has a huge spending area for the PCs. They
plan to build 50 new schools, as well as renovate another 70, within four
years. The price tag combined for both new buildings and renovations will be
approximately $2.4 billion. These improvements will be made to both rural and
urban centers. The PC’s see the new schools as a necessary investment because the
student population in Alberta is projected to grow by nearly 100,000. They also
plan to develop an online resource for parents to extend the education process
into the home. This might change the education system to be similar to both
German and Japanese systems, where a larger emphasis on education is reinforced
at home, lessening the costs of improving education on the government.

Finally, the PC’s are focused on a number of community based
initiatives. For example, the PCs want to continue increasing the funding for Alberta
libraries. Also $1 million commitment to community based anti-crime initiatives.
Furthermore, there will be increased funding for Assured Income for the
Severely Handicapped (AISH). There are even more announcements of what PCs are
offering Albertans on their website.

There are a lot of expensive items being offered by the
conservatives. The PCs want to make a significant tax dollar investment. Can
they do all this while balancing the budget? Whether the PCs get the opportunity
to do so, will be up to Albertans this election.